The Coldbrook native is waiting to see what next season will hold for him and can only hope 2014-2015 gets off to a more certain start than the season just past.

McKie, who will turn 17 in May, was drafted by Charlottetown in the fourth round of the 2013 QMJHL draft, the 69th overall pick. His 2013-2014 odyssey started when he attended the Charlottetown training camp last August. For a while, he thought he might have made the team.

“I went to P.E.I., they enrolled me in school, then two days before school started, they sent me home. The day I got home, I got a call from Amherst.”

The Amherst Ramblers junior A team wanted him to play there. He set up a billet in Amherst, and enrolled in school again.

“I got to school the first day, and that night, they cut me,” McKie said.

He returned home again, and prepared to play a second season with the Valley Midget AAA Wildcats. He also enrolled in Grade 11 at Central Kings – his third high school in the space of a couple of weeks.

McKie spent the season with the midget Wildcats, serving as an assistant captain, a valued defenceman and, even at age 16, one of the team leaders.

Chances to advance

McKie also got to play a handful of games with the junior A Wildcats, and remained on the P.E.I. radar as well.

“I was called up once, and made a road trip with them, which was a good experience for me even though I didn’t get to play in any games,” he said.

Being drafted by P.E.I, and especially being chosen so high, “was a bit of a surprise to me, especially where I hadn’t been ranked by Central Scouting,” he said.

“I can understand why (P.E.I.) cut me. I wouldn’t have played as much there, or gotten to improve nearly as much,” he said.

The Wildcats, while not as successful as in 2012-2013 - when they won the provincial and Atlantic championships and played for the TELUS Cup - had a pretty good team this year, he said.

“We were second at the Monctonian (a large and competitive tournament in New Brunswick) for a second straight year. There aren’t too many teams have done that.”

The Wildcats had a change in coaching, with Dan Turner taking over as head coach from Nick Greenough, who moved up to the juniors.

“They have different styles, but I like playing for both of them,” he said. “For his first year in major midget, (Turner) did a really good job. I learned a lot this year.”